Rhys Matthews speaks with Status Quo frontman Francis Rossi about ego, Live Aid, and changes in the music industry.
When I called Francis Rossi, he answered the phone with a high pitched voice, saying: “Hello is Becky there please?” But I’d done my research and was aware he likes to play practical jokes, so I responded by saying “She’s not sorry, who’s calling?”
I felt proud for catching him out and he said “I almost had you for a split second and then you knew it was gobshite. I did it to a guy once and he put the phone down, and went round his house thinking his daughter had been messing with the phone.”
Francis seems to be in good spirits, chatty and very funny. Before I can even ask my first question he starts telling me about his theory on swearing and different levels of offense, Weetabix, selling gig tickets and how he’s been dealing with some “shit” to do with his kids, the youngest of which is (he thinks) 20 but he says they “never go away”.
After a five-minute rant he says “right, we better get to work, I’ve got to go into the studio in a minute”. After we chit chat for a few more minutes, I finally get around to asking the first question: what was the biggest change in the music business since he started?
“It used to be called ‘hype’ I think. But now it’s all about marketing, whether we should be blaming the Spice Girl period, but generally everything is about marketing. Even Glastonbury, it’s just a gig in a field. We are all bollocksing each other. Everybody says the things they think will sound good, rather than what they actually feel. Sorry, they should have let someone else do this. I bet when you get off you’re going to say ‘I’m not talking to him again.’”
I’m quite enjoying it, I reply. “I just can’t stop once I get going,” he laughs.
Is there anything Francis misses about the early days? “Not really, other than the camaraderie. But life was different then anyway – we were trying to escape a post-World War Two, black and white bombsite world that we were in. But then you get to my age and you think – well hang on, this is not what I thought the promise was.
“When I was in Catholic primary school aged seven, I asked Mrs Sullivan, ‘what happens when we leave school?’ She said, ‘Well if you do well in school, you get a good job, then you work until you’re about 65 and then you can do all the things you couldn’t do when you were working.’ Fucking liar! ‘And then you get a place next to God.’ I was seven years old, thinking… that doesn’t sound right.
People think that when you’ve got this much money you stop working, but I was thinking the other night ‘How am I going to finance myself for the next 20 years?’ Even if I’ve saved enough, there’s the pension thing they keep pissing with. So it goes back to Mrs Sullivan and the lies we’ve all been told.”
Rossi then hints that one of his best memories was Live Aid. “Most of us turned it down. Oddly enough, that summer we weren’t doing anything and Bob [Geldof] called and we thought ‘Oh go away Bob.’ Within the next two or three weeks he approached us again and we said ‘Look Bob, we’re not getting along, we’re not working.’ He said, ‘It doesn’t matter what you sound like.’ And I’ve subsequently found out, he said that to everybody. So to his credit, he did pull that together. There was a lot of jockeying for position. That showbiz bullshit of pretending we’re all friends… it’s only so long as I’m bigger than you. But in retrospect it was a fantastic vibe.”
Why does Francis think that bands from his generation have stayed so popular? “Maybe it’s because there’s such a saturation of music – it can be everywhere, and it’s not as special as it was when we were younger. But also, the older bands knew how to die on their arse, and I’m pretty sure the X Factor generation don’t, they got on there, they get through and it’s all fabulous.
“You know, but when we were young, we had to play places like Abergavenny Town Hall, and it was horrible, but you just did this stuff. But I listened to a Travis track the other day and I thought ‘Oh bloody hell, that is marvellous.’ And then there are people like Ed Sheeran, who I hear in passing and I think he’s marvellous, the little git. I’d like to have him terminated, who needs that kind of competition?”
He then starts to talk about their new album Accept No Substitute! The Definitive Hits. “I know a lot of the time, people are negative about their back catalogue, but that is who we are. Those songs are who we are. There’s a track called All We Really Wanna Do, it’s written in a semi-bluesy kind of way, and that’s one of my favourites. I have a lot of favourite songs, but I’m one of the first people to put Status Quo down, for many reasons. In our business, people are really great at over inflating the ego.
“I was watching someone the other week, who I know rather well, on an interview. I can’t tell you who it is. But he was asked on TV, ‘How did you arrange this with this artist?’ And he said: Well, I called him up…’ Lies!” he laughs. If I wanted to contact anybody, even if they’re friends of mine, and I have their number, if it’s about work, there’s protocol, you go via management and so on. So when you hear someone on telly saying ‘I called them up.’ They didn’t, they’re lying. We want people to think we all love each other. But we’re all in competition, we’re all insecure little showoffs really. And we think ‘I’m better than him’, even though we say ‘Oh he’s fantastic, we had a great time working together’. They probably didn’t even see each other – they probably stayed in their own dressing rooms.
“I wanted this so desperately, the thing I do now, but I’ve done it so long, maybe it’s made me jaded. But I enjoyed talking to you, it was very nice of you to let me waffle on.”
Status Quo, Caldicot Castle, Monmouthshire, Sat 6 Aug; Parc Y Scarlets, Llanelli, Sat 27 Aug. Tickets: £35. Info: 01291 420241 (Caldicot) / 01554 783900 (Llanelli) / www.statusquo.co.uk